Latest AOL buy spells more ad rivalry with Microsoft
In the same week that Microsoft made a half-billion-dollar deal with Viacom, AOL has announced it's closed a merger deal in the advertising space. Could greater intrusiveness into consumer behavior, and higher ad prices, ultimately follow?
Long ago, it seems AOL was known as an Internet service provider, while Microsoft was considered a software vendor. But AOL's announcement this week of its completed buyout of Trigo, together with Microsoft's $500 million-plus pact with Viacom, signify ever intensifying rivalry between the two budding advertising and entertainment empires.
Congress to debate lifting broadcast radio's royalty exemption
Since the dawn of the musical era in radio, broadcasters have been free from paying royalties to musical performers. Radio was once the bands' ticket to the big leagues. That may change if two congressmen have their way.
In a hearing last July, Rep. Howard Berman (D - Calif.) made it extremely clear that he believed the fact that terrestrial broadcast radio doesn't compensate performers for the songs they play, and never have, is a clear and present danger to the lives and well-being of a multitude of performers who may literally lie destitute in nursing homes today.
How buying an Aquos gets you a Vudu
New video on demand service Vudu has announced that its set-top boxes will be made available for free with the purchase of select Sharp AQUOS LCD TVs.
New video on demand service Vudu, which just one week ago announced it would offer new release movie streamsday and date with DVD releases, has unveiled a special partnership with CE manufacturer Sharp.
Judge rules for MPAA in TorrentSpy case
A judge ruled against the BitTorrent site in its case against the MPAA this week, accusing it of tampering with evidence.
The court found that TorrentSpy deleted or renamed threads and categories that infringed on copyrights, and deleted the IP addresses of its users. While termination is a rarely used sanction, the court said TorrentSpy's actions were "sufficiently extraordinary" to warrant it.
Analysts: Keep cell phone games simple
In light of a recent Parks Associates analysis of mobile and portable gaming trends, a series of casual games have hit the market for cellular handsets and portable media devices.
Mobile handsets have typically been a repository for casual games, previously because of hardware limitations, but now because of the changing habits of the handset user. The Parks Associates study released yesterday, entitled "The New Frontier: Portable and Mobile Gaming," shows that even though multi-player and 3D games like those utilizing QualCOMM's BREW look impressive on new handsets, the real money is still in simple, low-investment time-wasters.
Mozilla releases Firefox 3.0 Beta 2, new features premiere
The next version of the world's most popular alternative Web browser is taking shape, with a more stable Beta 2 released yesterday. Added to the feature set are some new conveniences you may wonder how you managed to do without.
Until recently, test versions for the next edition of Firefox -- codenamed "Gran Paradiso" -- have been interesting but not altogether stable, which isn't surprising for builds that were clearly labeled "alpha." But yesterday, Mozilla sprung the trap on the Beta 2 release of Firefox 3.0, and early on, BetaNews noticed the improvements the organization had long been promising now appear to be working more solidly.
The GSM overseas wireless market heats up for US customers
AT&T, Verizon Wireless, and Sprint Nextel, look out! European companies with unfamiliar names to many Americans, now offer much cheaper and more convenient GSM cellular services to US residents traveling abroad.
NEW YORK CITY (BetaNews) - As AT&T, Verizon Wireless, and other major US wireless carriers move further into GSM, they're encountering some real competition from small start-ups such as Call in Europe, which offer US residents who are traveling in Europe a much better deal on cell phones that will work overseas.
Nero 8 update offers Blu-ray and HD DVD authoring
Multimedia suite Nero has received an update which enables authoring of both Blu-ray and HD DVD.
Popular multimedia management software Nero's newest version, Nero 8 has been certified for authoring and playback of writable Blu-ray Disc Multimedia Video (BDMV) in addition to HD DVD content authoring on DVD-R/W.
Verizon Wireless compensates customers for 'unlimited' usage cap fiasco
More than 13,000 former subscribers of Verizon Wireless' Internet service who found their accounts terminated due to alleged misuse, started receiving refunds for their equipment costs this week.
As first reported by BetaNews in October, the New York Attorney General's office went after the company over misleading advertising surrounding its NationalAccess and BroadbandAccess products.
iSuppli: iPod Touch, iPhone similar but different
On the outside, the two devices look pretty much the same, but a teardown by the company revealed that those similarities were pretty much skin deep.
Granted, the two devices are about 90 percent similar. However, iSuppli found that Apple redesigned the innards to better serve the intended uses for either device. The Touch also seems to be slightly more sophisticated in design, which likely indicates that the company may have used lessons learned from building the iPhone in building the Touch.
Apple issues patch for MacBook keyboard freeze issue
After a deluge of posts on Apple's MacBook support forum complaining of periodic or even total loss of keyboard function in MacBooks and MacBook Pros running Leopard, Apple has issued a patch for the OS.
According to users' comments, the glitch was reported to randomly cause keyboard input to cease until it "resolves itself," or until the user reboots. Trackpad function is reported to be unaffected, and in most instances, external keyboards appear to be safe from the malfunction.
Microsoft and Viacom ink $500 million-plus Web and TV deal
In an online advertising and cable TV entertainment deal of sweeping proportions, Microsoft and Viacom will be teaming up with each other on both the Web as well as on Viacom's broadband network for at least five years.
Although the two companies have declined to disclose specific financial terms, Microsoft officials are projecting a base value of about $500 million in financial considerations and business services over the first five years of the pact, including revenue sharing provisions, guarantees, and content licensing agreements.
Microsoft co-founder on 700 MHz bidders list, Verizon Wireless not
We won't know exactly what bidders plan to spend for a lucrative chunk of spectrum upon which to build new wireless services, but we do know who the bidders are. And at least for now, there are a few surprises.
Thus far, the preliminary list of bidders in the US Federal Communications Commission's 700 MHz auction is a veritable cavalcade of small telecom companies, plus small and large companies alike looking to become telecom companies. Google Airwaves, Inc. is the least surprising, and perhaps most spotlighted member of the group thus far.
Facebook settles suit over unsolicited text messages
The social networking site settled a suit that claimed it was sending out text messages to the former cellular phone numbers of Facebook users.
Lindsey Abrams of Patriot, Ind. claimed that she was receiving texts from the service, some with explicit content, and was being charged 10 cents each time. Facebook was said to receive a portion of that fee.
DivX playback arrives on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360
DivX has announced that Sony's PS3 -- like Microsoft's Xbox 360 -- will now support the company's video format with the 2.10 firmware update, but who will use it?
While not fully certified, DivX says it expects Sony to give the PS3 console a full certification in the future.
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